Dab Kinzer eBook

“We must see Mrs. Lee right away,” said
Ford. “It would never do to let Dick tell
her.”

“Guess dat’s so,” said Dick.

Quite an embassy they made, those four boys, with
Dab Kinzer for spokesman, and Dick Lee almost crouching
behind them. Mrs. Lee listened with open mouth
while Dab unfolded his plan, but when he had finished
she shut her lips firmly together. They were not
very thin, and not at all used to being shut, and
in another instant they opened again.

“Sho! De boy! Is dat you, Dick?
Dat’s wot comes ob dressin’ on ’im
up. How’s he goin’ to git clo’es?
Wot’s he got to do wid de ’Cad’my,
anyhow? Wot am I to do, yer all alone, arter
he’s gone? Who’s goin’ to run
err’nds an’ do de choahs? Wot’s
de use ob bringin’ up a boy an’ den hab
him go trapesin’ off to de ’Cad’my?
Wot good’ll it do ’im?”

If Mrs. Lee was surprised by their very sudden and
somewhat unceremonious retreat, she need not have
been, after she learned the cause of it. She
stood in wholesome awe of Mrs. Kinzer; and a “brush”
with the portly widow, re-enforced by the sweet face
of Annie Foster, was a pretty serious matter.

She did not hesitate about beginning the skirmish,
however; for her tongue was already a bit loosened,
and in fine working-order.

“Oh! it’s all arranged nicely. Miss
Foster and I only came over to see what we could do
about getting his clothes ready. He must have
things warm and nice, for the winters are cold up
there.”

“I hasn’t said he might go—­Dick,
put down dem eels; an’ he hasn’t said
he’d go—­Dick, take off yer hat; an’
his father”—­

“Now, Glorianna,” interrupted Mrs. Kinzer,
calling Dick’s mother by her first name, “I’ve
known you these forty years, and do you suppose I’m
going to argue about it? Just tell us what Dick’ll
need, and don’t let’s have any nonsense.
The money’s all provided. How do you know
what’ll become of him? He may be governor
yet.”

“He mought preach!”

That idea had suddenly dawned upon the perplexed mind
of Mrs. Lee, and Dick’s fate was settled.
She was prouder than ever of her boy; and, truth to
tell, her opposition was only what Mrs. Kinzer had
considered it, a piece of unaccountable “nonsense,”
to be brushed away by just such a hand as the widow’s
own.